Dog cops must await their fate
2003-05-15 15:20
Pretoria - The sentencing of two former police dog-handlers who set their animals on three illegal immigrants has been postponed until next month.
In March this year, Judge Dion Basson convicted Nicolaas Kenneth Loubser and Dino Guiotto on three charges of assault with the intent to do grievous bodily harm and one of attempting to defeat the ends of justice for trying to cover up their involvement.
They had pleaded not guilty to the charges, and their trial was separated from that of four other former colleagues who had pleaded guilty.
Of the four, Kobus Smith got an effective five-year prison sentence, while Christo Koch, Robert Henzen and Eugene Truter were each jailed for an effective three years'.
Smith's appeal against his sentence is to be heard in the Supreme Court of Appeals in Bloemfontein next Wednesday.
On Thursday, André Fourie, for the State, asked Basson to postpone Loubser and Guiotto's case until June 24, pending the outcome of Smith's appeal. The judge agreed.
The six men were arrested in 2000 shortly before the SABC screened a video showing some of them inciting their dogs to bite three illegal Mozambican immigrants near Benoni in January 1998.
At the time, they were all members of the police's North East Rand dog unit.
The victims were Gabriel Pedro Timane, Alexandre Pedro Timane and Sylvester Cose.
- SAPA